Posts Tagged ‘2015’

There is nothing wrong with the debut album from France’s TankrusT, nothing at all. There’s also nothing particularly striking about it either. They hail from France and seem to come from the ashes of some underground bands called SIC, One Shot, and Filet o’fish fuckin (yup), and they play a form of modern, tight, chunky, and almost Danish sounding […]

I’m not familiar with San Francisco’s Insanity. They were apparently one of the early legendary and influential US death/thrash bands in the mid to late 80s, but didn’t release an album until 1994’s Death After Death. So they missed the death metal explosion and peak of the early 90s, which I imagine why it was lost in […]

“Never judge a book by its cover”. You’d think I would have learned my lesson by now. When I got Nine Plagues in the mail, with a logo that looks like something I would have drawn on my 9th grade English folder, I set my expectation pretty low. However, as it turns out that the […]

Since transforming into a fully orchestral, symphonic death metal band with 2011 Agony (my very top album of that year), the band has been pretty divisive with an either love them or hate them approach. Some claim the band is soulless, forgetful tech death with no riffs, simply window dressed with symphonics. Others, myself included […]

When listening to the debut from Greece’s Caelestia I’m reminded of a release I covered earlier this year; Dysrider’s Bury the Omen . Big, polished, modern take on melodic death metal, both using operatic female and gruff male vocals and both heavy on the synths and orchestration. Where Caelestia add something is a more Gothic metal vibe with […]

Londoners HAG work up a twitchy, Ritalin necessitating din on their debut full-length Fear of Man. Though I knew virtually nothing of the trio going into this review, it’s without question that I came out as a fan. The highly melodic, walls n’ waves of My Bloody Valentine-esque guitar squalor that runs lockstep with the […]

Suppressive Fire is a new, slightly blackened 3 piece death/thrash metal band from North Carolina, and while I’ve never been a huge fan of black/thrash, Suppressive Fire lean a little more to the thrash side and their war laden themes and imagery had me more intrigued than I usually would be with something this style. With […]

The multi-instrumentalist Kris Force and her spacey juggernaut, vapor trail institution Amber Asylum has over 20 years in the music world and stints on known labels such as Relapse, Neurot and Profound Lore for a reason. Never once in the group’s career have they compromised their vision. While the “band’s” line-up is often changing, […]

Recalling the glory years of Scandinavian 90s melodic death metal, Finland’s Suotana and their debut album hearken back to an era of early Children of Bodom, Norther, Lothlorien, Ensiferum, Kalmah and such. Big, epic, keyboard drenched, catchy, bouncy slightly blackened melodic death metal is the order of the day, and while there is nary a […]

When Satan emerged from the dead with their exceptional comeback album Life Sentence in 2013, one of the early pioneers of the NWOBHM triumphed emphatically, bringing their old school retro formula into the modern era with spectacular results. While I’m sure long-time fans were particularly enthralled, I was surprised by the impact it had on […]

If Volume I era Sleep was signed to Am-Rep in the 90s and recorded Sleep’s Holy Mountain under Haze’s supervision, you’d probably have something like Connecticut’s Bedroom Rehab Corporation. Simply a duo comprised of Adam Wujtewicz on bass and drummer Meghan Killimade, the band’s second studio slab Fortunate Some is full of hypnotic groove meditations […]

Spellbook, the 2012 debut from this Canadian/Balkan one man project was a pretty solid slab of thrash/death/black metal. Not much has changed in 3 years. The sound is a tight, almost robotic (due to programmed drums), death/thrash release with gruff almost Chris Barnes is growls. There’s no wasted sound, no intros, no interludes, and while […]

No arguments that Finland’s Purtenance put out one of the finest death metal albums in the 90’s, Member of Immortal Damnation. To argue would be stupid. A few years ago the band put the pieces back together and …to Spread the Flame of the Ancients is their third release, & second full length since the […]

The US and mainly fertile Floridian death metal explosion of the early 90s is stuff of legend; Death, Cynic, Atheist, Obituary, Deicide, Nocturnus, Malevolent Creation, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse and the Morrisound ‘sound produced some of the best death ever, that to this day is considered seminal and whose influnce is still going well over 25 years later. Well in 1993 a band called Brutality released Screams of Anguish on label monsters Nuclear Blast, and while it arguably juuuuuust missed the genre’s peak its more classical based style insured that it rubbed shoulders with some of the classics of the day.

Despite the founder Mika Mage originally hailing from Finland, Finnish moniker and album based on the Kalevala poems, Nihilistinen Barbaarisuus hails from deepest , darkest Philadelphia and have ties with some other USBM bands such as Shadow in the Crypt and others. However, despite a real, honest attempt at early 90s European symphonic black metal, the album […]

Italy’s Void of Sleep stormed out of the blocks with their accomplished 2013 debut album, Tales Between Reality and Madness. It was a hugely impressive, potential packed debut which certainly got me excited about their future. The sound was a versatile mixture of progressive sludge rock and thick stoner metal groove coupled with the band’s […]

When I first fired up the (at the time) self-released album from New Jersey tech-death quartet Dystrophy, I was blown away by the first track “Apex”. Sporting a very well done Gorguts/Ulcerate impersonation, that first track actually reminded me very much of my favorite track “Forgotten Arrows” from Gorguts’ last album. It had the haunting, […]

Well slap my ass and call me Sally, Belgium’s Serial Butcher just surprised the hell right out of me with their sophomore album for Unique Leader Records, Brute Force Lobotomy. Though I had previously never heard Serial Butcher before, I pretty much could guess their sound, this is a Unique Leader release after all. So […]

One could argue that the 2015 debut album from super group Gruesome, Savage Lands, is the current pinnacle of early Death worship, to the point where they actually almost recreated actual songs from Scream, Bloody Gore, Leprosy and Spiritual Healing. But also tucked away in 2015 was the second effort from California’s Skeletal Remains, who […]

Beginning with a warped, psychedelic drug manifesto in the form of instrumental phasing and back-masking, Colorado doom metallers Dead Temple make their intent clear from the very first notes on opener “Shadow of a Thousand Faces.” The band’s deadly twin guitar attack creates some elements of old school metal akin to Maiden, Priest, Lizzy and […]

The latest from the England’s Dawn of Chaos struck me at moment when I was thinking of the days of me playing, creating and drawing characters from the role playing game Warhammer and the whole Realm of Chaos scenario. I saw the band name, the artwork (I love their logo) and I got thinking “Uhhmm, […]

Canada’s a good place to make black metal. Some of my bandmates are from Canada, and I know the cold up there is dogging and leads some folks to produce music that reckons of the endlessly lashing frost that befalls every inch of the country. Murderous death/black quintet Vile Insignia are a good representation of […]

The tragic events which nearly cost Georgia’s Baroness their lives has been well documented, so I won’t bother rehashing the dramatic circumstances here. Needless to say the emotional and physical scarring the members endured fractured the band and left frontman/guitarist John Baizley and Pete Adams (guitars, vocals) to pick up the pieces and resurrect Baroness. […]

Back in 2013, I was impressed by the second album, The Next, from Mexican guitarist Antonio Freyre and his gathering of International musicians including bassist Mike Poggionne (Vile, Monstrosity, Lecherous Nocturne) , drummer Timo Häkkinen (Sotajumala) and Phil Tougas of Zealotry/Vengeful/Chthe’ilist on guitars delivering a dizzying chaotic, Canadian take on death metal that imbued Cryptopsy. With the only change being Josh Smith (Monumental […]